What’s the Use of Technology? Insights from EFL Classrooms in Chinese Secondary Schools

Abstract

Technology is believed to have benefits for learning. Since 2000, research has flourished in the use of technology in second and foreign-language (FL) learning (Chapelle 2000; Lim and Shen 2006). Recognising the important role teachers play in using technology for educational purposes, much work has been done to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards, and beliefs about, using technologies in the classroom (e.g. Baek et al. 2008; Li and Walsh 2011b). Results suggest that, overall, teachers demonstrate positive attitudes towards using technology, and various factors were reported to influence this (see Ertmer and Ottenbreit- Leftwich 2010; Li 2008; Tondeur et al. 2008). However, in terms of the actual use of technology in teaching, in a range of educational settings across different countries, studies indicate that teachers are reluctant technology users (see, for example, Li and Walsh 2011b; Yang and Huang 2008), although various forms of technology have been reported in language classrooms, including both stand-alone computer tools and web 2.0 technologies (see Liu et al. 2002, for a pre-2000 review, and also Macaro et al. 2012, for a post-2000 review).